Beautiful Books
by Beautiful-Warriors
Summary: "Ethan found me. Now it's my turn" Ethan left Lena, saving the world but breaking her. He left a message with only eight words, and a book. A book titled Beautiful Creatures. Set in the beginning of Beautiful Redemption from Lena's PoV, and spoilers for the entire series.


**I have read tons of these types of stories, with a variety of books. But never a Beautiful Creatures one, so here it is! **

**My updates may be somewhat out of ordinance, but that's because I am going to write one book chapter per fanficiton chapter. (Does that make since? One chapter of Beautiful Creatures per update)**

**Also, many, many of these kind of stories have all of the main characters, but never ****the**** main character. I agree with the later, because re-living your life in book form would most likely suck. I have decided to make this a bit different: only Lena will be in this story present tense. It will take place after Beautiful Chaos, but before the scene with the crossword. **

**It is best to have read at least up to Beautiful Chaos, and if you have not, Do not read this. It will not spoil Beautiful Redemption, because in that time, it has not happened yet. **

**And a *little* OOC because he never gave her a book, obliviously, but ANYWAY..**

**DISCLAIMER: I actually DON'T wish I owned this, because if I did, there would be so many fanfictions and books with the first word Beautiful that I would eventually end up with something titled Beautiful Cheese.  
**

**So no, I don't own Beautiful Creatures, Beautiful Darkness, Beautiful Chaos, or Beautiful Redemption or any/all parts.**

* * *

Time passes differently when you no longer care about life its self.

Minutes turn to hours. Hours turn to days. Days turn to weeks.

I don't care anymore.

I only have one reason not to give up entirely.

Ethan.

I know he isn't dead. Only lost. And everything lost gets found.

Ethan found me.

Now it's my turn.

* * *

He left me a message.

_I will always love you._

_-Ethan_

He left me a book.

_Beautiful Creatures_

This is it?

A stupid book to make me forget him, get _over_ him? Like a break up?

You give presents for birthdays, Christmas, a date.

You don't leave a six word message and a book as a death present.

You shouldn't have to. No one should have to _die_ to fix things.

The longer I look at his message, the more tears stain my clothes.

_I love you_

Kelting doesn't feel the same anymore. It feels empty.

I feel as if I'm talking to an empty phone.

_You aren't dead. Only lost. I know you'll come back to me. I know you aren't gone._

Uncle Macon stopped trying to make me survive this.

Amma is just as bad. Link, Rid, Liv, John and her come over most days. Link won't admit Ethan isn't dead. He can't wait for hope.

The town thinks Ethan is with his Aunt Caroline. Every time Mr. Wate asks Link if he's had a call from Ethan, he tried to sound normal, but it can't be.

How can you tell your best friends dad that everything will be fine, that Ethan will come home soon, when your broken?

All Amma does is try to consult the Greats. I know they won't answer her. It just is more proof that Ethan's not really gone, just lost. If the Greats knew anything, they would let Amma know.

I pick up the book. It's a thick black book, covered in curly script that I now can't make out because of my watering eyes.

If Ethan wanted me to have it, maybe it's a key to getting him back.

I read.

* * *

**There were only two kinds of people in our town. "The stupid and the stuck," my father had affectionately classified our neighbors. The ones who are bound to stay or too dumb to go. Everyone else finds a way out.**

It can't be.

**There was no question which one he was, but I'd never had the courage to ask why. My father was a writer, and we lived in Gatlin, South Carolina, because the Wates **

The Wates.

_Ethan. Why?_

**always had, since my great-great-great-great-granddad, Ellis Wate, fought and died on the other side of the Santee** **River during the Civil War. Only folks down here didn't call it the Civil War. Everyone under the age of sixty called it the War Between the States, while everyone over sixty called it the War of Northern Aggression, as if somehow the North had baited the South into war over a bad bale of cotton. Everyone, that is, except my family. **

How did he even get this? I know Ethan never wrote a book. You can't even swat a fly in this town without everyone knowing about it, let alone write a book.

He gave me his life.

_Take it back, EW. I don't want it._

_You keep it._

_I can't be your keeper when you take it from me._

_I would give everything to take it back._

**We called it the Civil War.**

**Just another reason I couldn't wait to get out of here.**

He got out of here.

Just when he changed his mind.

** Gatlin wasn't like the small towns you saw in the movies, unless it was a movie from about fifty years ago. We were too far from Charleston to have a Starbucks or a McDonald's. All we had was a Dar-ee Keen, since the Gentrys were too cheap to buy all new letters when they bought the Dairy King.**

What does this have to do with anything?

_I can't find you with a few extra letters. Why are you making me read this?_

I don't have to read this. I have a choice.

I always have choices.

Almost always.

There is no choice in bringing Ethan back.

No choice in him leaving in the first palce.

**The library still had a card catalog, the high school still had chalkboards, and our community pool was Lake Moultrie, warm brown water and all. You could see a movie at the Cineplex**

Our first date.

The red string.

**about the same time it came out on DVD, but you had to hitch a ride over to Summerville, by the community college. The shops were on Main, the good houses were on River, and everyone else lived south of Route 9, where the pavement disintegrated into chunky concrete stubble —terrible for walking, but perfect for throwing at angry possums, the meanest animals alive. **

I have never seen a possum.

Not once.

**You never saw that in the movies. Gatlin wasn't a complicated place; Gatlin was Gatlin.**

Gatlin is not Gatlin.

Gatlin is everything and nothing.

**The neighbors kept watch from their porches in the unbearable heat, sweltering in plain sight. But there was no point.**

Is there ever a point?

** Nothing ever changed.**

_Everything changed._

_Everything._

** Tomorrow would be the first day of school,**

Our first day of school.

The day I meet the boy I had already met.

The day I learned that the dreams were not just dreams.

The day that changed everything.

** my sophomore year at Stonewall Jackson High, and I already knew everything that was going to happen**

We knew nothing about what would happen.

How could you?

** — where I would sit, who I would talk to, the jokes, the girls,**

The girls?

Really?

_You didn't know me._

I remember the words I spoke to him.

_"You know nothing about me, Ethan."_

You do now.

And you died because of me.

** who would park where. There were no surprises in Gatlin County.**

I wish we could just be normal teenagers, without worrying if the worlds going to end.

Without having to save the world.

Without getting lost.

**We were pretty much the epicenter of the middle of nowhere. At least, that's what I thought, **

That's what I thought, too.

**when I closed my battered copy of _Slaughterhouse-Five_, clicked off my iPod, and turned out the light on the last night of summer.**

The last night of normality.

**Turns out, I couldn't have been more wrong.**

**There was a curse.**

Our curse.

**There was a girl.**

_Do you wish you had never met me, Ethan?_

The words hurt too much to think.

**And in the end, there was a grave.**

Two graves, Ethan.

And one already came back.

**I never even saw it coming.**

We saw it coming.

It was just to late.

_I miss you._

_I love you._

_You aren't dead._

_Only lost._

_I remember everything. _

_The first day I actually saw you in person. When I realized you were real. The rain. So much rain. The night on your pouch when I told you what I was and you believed me. Our first date. Parking. The Book of Moons. The locket. Greenbrier. The day you told me you loved me and I realized love can exist before first sight. The little button you gave to me and stood against your town to protect me, even when I didn't want it. The day you fixed me. The day I broke everything. The times I hurt you. The time I broke you. The time you found me, even after I told you to go. When I broke everything again. When we tried to fix everything. The happy days we spent together pretending nothing was broken. When you fixed everything but broke me. _

**AN- So um... good or bad?**

**I'll TRY to get another chapter out my Friday,but I might not be able to till Monday/Tuesday.**

**Or maybe tomorrow. We'll see.**

**Review please! It takes like 26 seconds, and they make me happy and make me UPDATE FASTER!**

**I have to get AT LEAST one before I'll update.**


End file.
